The Sound of Rain
by festiveviolet31
Summary: A collection of one shots based on moments between Illya and Gaby. Chapter 1- Illya comforts Gaby after a mission gone wrong. Illya's POV. Chapter 2- Gaby waits for Illya and does some reflecting in the process. Gaby's POV. Chapter 3- Illya is all nerves giving Gaby a birthday gift. Fluff alert. Illya's POV.
1. Chapter 1

It is the sound of rain that wakes him. Illya is certain of it almost as soon as he opens his eyes, his immediate alertness a byproduct of years of KGB training. It had only been a drizzle when they'd gone to sleep, Illya thinks to himself. Now, rain beats against the roof of Gaby's London flat like snare drums at a symphony.

Silently, Illya reaches over the bedside table and grabs his father's watch, making out the miniscule numbers in the moonlight. 2:58 a.m. He sighs, the deep pull of sleep calling to him, and rolls to his other side. With eyes closed Illya reaches across the bed, craving Gaby's warm skin against his. He feels nothing except cotton. Opening his eyes, Illya's sees the bed empty, the sheets peeled back where Gaby should be laying. His pulse quickens as he sits up. Glancing around the room, he sees nothing alarming, no sign of a silent intruder. The only thing missing is the grey bathrobe, normally hung against the back of the bathroom door, which Gaby had taken from his apartment long ago.

Illya swings his feet from the bed and goes to the closet, pulling on a sweater and pajama pants. His movements are nearly silent. Once dressed, he cracks open the door of the bedroom. Through the dark flat he can see the French doors to the balcony open, rainwater flicking against the wood floors of Gaby's living room. Squinting in the dim light, he sees the shape of Gaby stretched haphazardly in an outdoor chair. Illya sighs and goes to her; it is not the first time he has found her sleeping outside like this. He wonders when will be the last.

The rain immediately soaks him as he steps onto the balcony, and he kneels down beside Gaby. With fingertips Illya brushes her wet bangs out of her face before scooping her into his arms and taking her back to bed. He shuts the doors to the balcony with the backs of his heels, maneuvers an extra blanket from the cupboard with one hand while managing not to jostle his chop shop girl too much in his arms. Illya knows he shouldn't put Gaby to bed in wet pajamas and a bathrobe, knows he should wake her up and run a hot bath for her. He doesn't want to wake her, though. He instead places her back on her side of the bed and tucks the thick quilt around her tiny body, hoping that it's enough to ward off any sickness that threatens her in the morning. He hears her mumble as he folds the quilt over her feet and looks up to see a fleeting, sleepy grin across her face. It is the first smile Illya has seen from Gaby, awake or asleep, in weeks, and he pauses for a moment and watches his chop shop girl sleep peacefully. After a moment seated at the edge of the bed, he goes back to his side, hoping that this night is perhaps the last night he will find her outside.

He is not sure how long he was asleep- whether minutes or hours- before he is awoken again. It is not the sound of rain that disrupts him. It is the sound of choppy breaths and panic. Immediately understanding, Illya pulls the duvet away from him and inches closer to Gaby. He wraps his arms around her shoulders that are cocooned in blankets. "Shhhh," he whispers into Gaby's ear. He feels the uneven rise and fall of her shoulders and he holds her closer. "Shhhh."

"I-" she gasps. Gaby's voice is tiny in the dark. Illya breaks at the sound of it. "I had a dream."

"I know," is all Illya says. He runs his hand along the side of her head in the way his mother used to soothe him as a young boy afraid of bad dreams.

He doesn't ask her if she wants to talk about it. They already have. After weeks, Illya knows what bothers Gaby at night, he knows the faces she sees when she closes her eyes. He dreamt about them too in the days leading up to her rescue, and he'd coldly enjoyed looking in their eyes when he'd killed the men that had taken her. Those are the details he doesn't share, that he will never tell Gaby. Those are the details he'd only shared with Napoleon over a tall glass of vodka, after the Red Peril and Cowboy had tracked down their third team member in a dingy, slimy weapons factory that housed a Romanian gang and an illegal arms dealership. Napoleon had tacitly agreed over an equally tall glass of amber liquor, and the two men hadn't spoken of it since.

It is the fourteen-hour stretch leading up to Gaby's rescue, before Illya and Napoleon had exhausted every resource and lead in U.N.C.L.E's repertoire, that Gaby doesn't share with Illya. She never explained the bruises around her hips and midsection, the blood they'd found staining her scalp and hands and knees. And Illya doesn't ask. He doesn't ask why he finds her sleeping outside, because he assumes it has everything to do with the dark, windowless room she'd been kept in and hurt in for fourteen hours until he tore down every man standing in his way to get to her. He doesn't ask. Instead, he carries her to bed on the nights, more often than not, that he finds her sleeping beneath stars and moonlight. He holds her close to his chest on the days when he finds her, in the third-floor supply cupboard of U.N.C.L.E headquarters, struggling to breathe at the prospect of going out into the field again.

He doesn't ask tonight; instead, he holds her close to him as he feels her shoulders contract with the sadness that chokes her words and strains her breaths. He murmurs the words "just breathe" against her hair and takes exaggerated, even breaths, strong enough that she can feel them through wet pajamas and layers of quilt and duvet.

"It's going to be okay," he whispers, as if it were Rome all over again.

Illya is not sure how long they lay there. Eventually, he feels the patterns Gaby had been drawing on the back of his hand cease, hears her breath even and slow to the point of sleep. Resting his head against the back of Gaby's shoulders, Illya feels the beating of her heart and smiles, almost painfully, to himself. The last thing Illya hears before falling back asleep is the sound of rain on rooftops and the gentle thrum of Gaby's heart.


	2. Chapter 2

"You do not need to come," Illya had said, and of course, Gaby had ignored him. She often ignored him, sometimes out of spite and rage and sometimes because Illya Kuryakin could act, in Gaby's words, totally asinine.

"Don't be ridiculous," was all Gaby had said on the phone in response. It is because Gaby had ignored Illya, repeatedly, that she now finds herself on a London tube at an ungodly hour, racing toward the airport so she can be the first person to see her favorite Russian touch down in England.

Leaning her head against the glass window, she closes her eyes and thinks back to their last night in Istanbul, days before Illya and Napoleon had left to go back to their home countries. She'd been walking along the waterfront, taking solace from the tough, grimy, difficult work they'd done. Another man had been killed in front of her, mere feet away, on a mission. The ringing in her ears from Napoleon's gunshot hadn't faded, and she could still see the image of the assailant's dark brown eyes as his life withered away in front of her.

"It is not safe for woman to be out by herself."

Gaby heard his voice before she saw him as she rounded the corner, leaning against a street lamp. She stopped in her tracks, cocked a hip to one side, and looked up at Illya.

'What, don't think I can handle myself?" she asked through gritted teeth. She saw him smile slightly in spite of himself as he walked toward her.

"Of course I do not think this," he'd said as he joined her, the two of them resuming the walk she'd started alone. They continued in silence for a time. Gaby felt his eyes on her every so often, but she said nothing.

"Does it get easier?" she finally asked. They stopped along a fence separating them from the river that split Istanbul down its center. She folded her hands and leaned against the fence, looking across the water that glowed beneath streetlamps and moonlight.

"Does what get easier?"

She could feel Illya looking down at her now, could almost feel his blue eyes drilling holes in her skin. She bit the inside of her bottom lip as she struggled to find the words. "Killing people," she'd finally said. She was fairly certain he could hear the exhaustion in her voice. Illya paused a moment before giving her his answer.

"Not easier. But you get used to the feeling."

He'd stepped closer to her then, her shoulder against his arm, and there was no more space between them. She exhaled, loudly, and leaned her head against the side of his arm, the both of them looking out on the water. They had stayed like that until the city quieted around them and the air grew colder. Eventually, Illya had insisted on walking Gaby back to the hotel, taking her arm in his. She'd wondered for a moment if he was going to ask to come in once they reached her door, but he didn't. She'd paused before inserting the key in the lock and turned to him. She looked up and into his eyes, and she wondered if he could see how tired she felt. Slowly, he reached up and placed his large, warm, worn hand against her cheek.

"Goodnight, little chop shop girl," he'd said, and she'd wondered about the nickname ever since.

She feels now as if she's been waiting at the gate for hours. With her arms crossed over her chest, she taps her foot impatiently as she glances among the crowds for Illya. _How hard is he to miss_ , she thinks to herself, wondering if she got his arrival time wrong.

As if she were in a play, Gaby glances up in time to see two large crowds disperse, and there he is, standing between them, and she can tell from the look in his eyes that he was searching for her too. She smiles, immediately relieved to see him, and walks over.

"I told you," Illya says as Gaby approaches. "You did not need to come all this way."

Gaby searches his face, taking in the sight of him she had missed these past few weeks. Glancing between his yellow hair, his brilliant eyes, and his brown bomber jacket, Gaby realizes that she is searching for anything that looks different between now and the last time she saw him.

"And what, leave you all alone to defend yourself in a foreign city?" she asks quietly, trying to be playful. She smirks up at him. They don't say much as they leave the airport, Gaby jokingly grabbing his only bag and lugging it over her shoulder. They board the tube, the crowds minimal at this early hour of the morning, and she has so many questions for him. How the KGB let him go back, for starters, but also about his trip and his flight and what did he do in Russia for two and a half weeks and did he miss her? She doesn't ask any, though, for once having nothing to say around her favorite Russian. For now, as the concrete and the occasional din of a lamp flash by her on the tube, she is content merely to sit with him, the feeling of his worn leather jacket soft against her skin.


	3. Chapter 3

The first gift Illya gives Gaby- the first gift exchanged between either of them, actually- is what Illya believes all gifts should be. Practical, useful, well made. He'd found it in a small store in his hometown while reporting back to the KGB. He'd been walking by swiftly, his collar up and his head turned down, when sunlight reflected off the shop's windows, catching his eye.

He'd felt ashamed that his first thought that night had been to call Napoleon.

"Cowboy," was all Illya had said on the phone when he heard the American pick up.

"Peril," Napoleon had quipped back.

"It is Gaby's birthday in several weeks."

"And?"

God, Illya really hated the American sometimes. He clenched his jaw on the phone and mentally categorized the list of ways he would have hurt Solo if they'd been in the same room.

Illya waited a few moments before clenching his teeth together and responding. "I am getting her present."

"Ah, young love. I always relish those early months in relationships." Illya could feel Napoleon smirking on the other end, and wished silently that there weren't several continents preventing Illya from hitting his partner in the head. Illya tuned back to realize Solo was still talking. "Everything's exciting, everyone's all atwitter."

"I am not atwitter." Illya's voice had been steely, his finger tapping against the receiver. He noticed how he didn't deny Napoleon's "young love" comment.

"Well, Peril, I must say I'm shocked at the sentimentality of it all. I didn't even know they acknowledged birthdays behind the Iron Curtain. What'll it be for Miss Teller, then? A collection of Shakespeare's sonnets? Perhaps something more intimate-"

Illya had stopped him right there, a selection of curses streaming out of him in his mother tongue. With Napoleon waiting patiently on the other end, Illya had finally confessed his idea about the shop.

Napoleon had laughed.

"My God, Peril, you may as well gift the girl a set of eyeglasses!"

Illya acknowledged the sarcasm but responded anyway. "Gaby does not need glasses."

Confiding in Napoleon had been a mistake, and since the purchase Illya had wondered what impulse had caused him to call the American in the first place. As was typical, Illya ignored Solo's advice anyway, completing his purchase the next morning before reporting to Oleg. He'd kept the gift in its original box, tucking it away in his suitcase beneath one of his dress shirts. He'd taken the box out on his flight back to London, to U.N.C.L.E headquarters, and turned it over in his hands repeatedly for the duration of the flight. Upon getting back to London, where Oleg had negotiated with Waverly to release Illya for an undisclosed length of time, he had shown it in secret to Solo after several hours of his pestering.

"Not bad at all, Peril," was all Solo had said, and Illya had snatched the box out of his hands and stowed it back in his bag. For days leading up to Gaby's birthday (March 14th, a date seared into Illya's brain since the moment he'd read her file in secret), Illya had taken the box out, debating whether or not to give it to her entirely. Illya had never been this nervous to give someone a gift before, had not given anyone any gift in many years. On March 13th, he'd almost dumped the box in the waste basket and settled with a bouquet of flowers and jewelry at Napoleon's suggestion.

 _Solo was right on the flowers_ , Illya now thinks to himself. He and Gaby sit in the park after a long walk, "a stroll through town" her only birthday request besides eating something sweet (they'd settled on sugar-coated strawberries). Under moonlight, Illya had held her hand, running her skinny, warm fingers through his. He'd led her to the bench where they now sit, the night air crisp and, for once, not rainy, and presented the gift to her, mumbling a "happy birthday" and nothing more. Gaby had opened the small package and simply looked at its contents, saying nothing.

"Do you like it?" Illya finally asks, breaking the silence, his brow furrowed.

"It's a watch," Gaby says. There is no judgment, no sound of disappointment in her tone. To Illya it almost sounds like a question.

He swallows back the anxiety he has not felt in many years and responds. "Yes. The same man who made it also made my father's watch."

Gaby simply looks at him, moonlight flickering in her wide brown eyes. With no words she removes it from the box, laces it around her tiny wrist and fumbles with the fastening.

"Let me," Illya grunts, taking her hand in his and notching it comfortably around her wrist. He leaves her hand in his long enough for her to turn it over, palm down. Gaby looks down at it, with a face Illya frustratingly can't place.

"It's lovely," she finally says, looking up at him. Quickly, she moves closer to Illya, throwing her arms around his neck. He feels her face pressing into his shoulder, feels her hair tickle his cheek, and releases a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Happy birthday, my little chop shop girl," is all Illya says to Gaby before he kisses her.


End file.
